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Tag Archives: French Southern and Antarctic Lands (FR)

Daylight saving time (DST) or summer time is the practice of advancing clocks during the summer months that have more sunlight so that people get up later in the morning and go to bed later at night. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in the autumn.

The practice has been both advocated and criticized. Putting clocks back benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but can cause problems for evening entertainment and other activities tied to the sun (such as farming) or to darkness (such as firework shows). Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening use of incandescent lighting (formerly a primary use of electricity), modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited or contradictory.

Other problems sometimes caused by DST clock shifts are: they complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Software can often adjust computer clocks automatically, but this can be limited and error-prone, particularly when DST dates are changed.